Just as there cannot lie in this the slightest supposition of a surprise, so we cannot see in it any encroachment on the royal authority. It seems, therefore, as if Count Struensee were reproached more for what might have happened than for what really did happen, for the Fiscal General dwells more particularly on the danger which was to be apprehended, in the event of the count misusing the king's confidence in issuing other orders than those which the king gave him. In order to prevent this, it is said the _Lex Regia_ has commanded the king to sign everything himself, and declared any man guilty of encroachment on the king's supremacy who appropriated any function opposed to this. But I trust I shall have no difficulty in proving that this reasoning is incorrect. How most unfair a law would be that punished a man because he possessed the opportunity for sinning, although he never made an attempt to take advantage of the opportunity! Hence Count Struensee cannot be punished because he might possibly have misused the king's confidence, unless it is notorious that he did so. The royal law never desired such a thing, for the two articles quoted from it do not agree with it. It is true that article 7 orders that all letters on business of the government shall be issued in no other name but the king's, and under his seal, and that he must sign himself, if he has attained his majority (his fourteenth year). Furthermore, it is true that article 26, states that the man who acquires anything which might encroach on the king's authority shall be regarded as an insulter of his Majesty. But what is it that Count Struensee acquired, and which was injurious to the king's supremacy? The count cannot be accused of this by the first part of article 7 of the _Lex Regia_; for no one will deny that the letters and decrees of the government were issued in the king's name. But if it be true that his Majesty did not always himself sign the cabinet decrees, it must be remembered that this point concerns his Majesty, and no one else. It is clear that Count Struensee cannot be made accountable because it did not always please his Majesty to sign, and that the royal authority has suffered, or could suffer, no encroachment, as it was dependent on the king's will whether he would sign an order himself, or specially command Count Struensee to sign it in his Majesty's name.